Delan Cooke from our Ballina office reports that trout fishing on Conn and Cullin has kicked off with the Mayfly up…

15 May: Last weekend we welcomed 53 anglers from throughout Ireland but mainly from the Cavan/Monaghan area with a smattering of visitors from Northern Ireland. These anglers had come to fish the annual Albert Berry competition on Lough Cullin. The competition is held over 2 days and tends to focus, primarily, on Lough Cullin as this is where the most reliable mayfly hatches are likely to occur in the early part of the season.

Although mayfly were evident throughout the lake, hatches were a little patchy and trout did not appear to be feeding on them. However, there were also good hatches of olive and this is how the winners, Walter and Susan Byrne found success. They fished the mid-lake using small, dry bumble olives and had 15 trout over the two days weighing 18.7 lbs.

In second place were Gary McLure and Alan Lutton with8 trout for 9lbs. The best fish was caught by Davy Ellis and weighed 3.7lbs, a fine fish for L. Cullin.

The total catch for the Albert Berry cup weekend was 77 trout.

Lough Conn has also begun to produce some good fishing and the first of the proper Mayfly hatches have commenced, mainly in Castlehill bay and the North end of the lake.

Orla Walsh had a lovely trout on a dry olive in Cloghan’s Bay on Thursday as well as a few fish on the 30 – 32cm range.

Eamonn Cooke and Gordon Milward from Wicklow had a great day fishing in Tolan’s Bay and the mouth of the Deel. Persistant hatches of Mayfly kept the trout interested and active at the surface throughout the day and they accounted for 13 decent trout, all of which were returned.

John Griffin from Crossmolina had 4 good trout in the 35cm range on a mayfly emerger, also in the bat at the mouth of the Deel.

 Go fishing…

The vast majority of trout caught on Lough Conn are taken on wet flies when trout are moving near the surface during the seasonal fly hatches, even in the valley periods, between hatches, it is nearly always possible to attract the attention of a trout to a team of well presented wet flies.

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